Various sights in various climes I have seen, and more I may see yet, But that sight never shall I forget, And have thought it the sorriest of pantomimes, If once, a hundred times! THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186– “WHY do you weep there, O sweet lady, Why do you weep before that brass?— (I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval) Is some late death lined there, alas?— Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!” “Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And under His name I set mine, and my _death_!— Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it, Stating me faithful till my last breath.” —“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!” “O wait! For last month I—remarried! And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss. We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddened At what the new one will say to this; And will he think—think that I should have tarried? “I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him— That he’s a temper—yes, I fear! And when he comes to church next Sunday morning, And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!” —“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!” HER LOVE-BIRDS WHEN I looked up at my love-birds That Sunday afternoon, There was in their tiny tune A dying fetch like broken words, When I looked up at my love-birds That Sunday afternoon. When he, too, scanned the love-birds On entering there that day, ’Twas as if he had nought to say Of his long journey citywards, When he, too, scanned the love-birds, On entering there that day. And billed and billed the love-birds, As ’twere in fond despair At the stress of silence where Had once been tones in tenor thirds, And billed and billed the love-birds As ’twere in fond despair. O, his speech that chilled the love-birds, And smote like death on me, As I learnt what was to be, And knew my life was broke in sherds! O, his speech that chilled the love-birds, And smote like death on me! PAYING CALLS I WENT by footpath and by stile Beyond where bustle ends, Strayed here a mile and there a mile And called upon some friends. On certain ones I had not seen For years past did I call, And then on others who had been The oldest friends of all. It was the time of midsummer When they had used to roam; But now, though tempting was the air, I found them all at home. I spoke to one and other of them By mound and stone and tree Of things we had done ere days were dim, But they spoke not to me. THE UPPER BIRCH-LEAVES